Here’s Detroit Pistons head coach Monty Williams on Jaden Ivey’s strong second half during Monday’s 129-117 road win vs. the Washington Wizards (Ivey finished with 24 points/7 rebounds/6 assists/3 blocks/9-18 FG/2-7 3-PT/4-7 FT/+3 +/-).
(via Bally Sports Detroit):
Reporter: “When you take a look at what Ivey was able to do in this game, scored the first 8 points, kind of had a rough go with four turnovers in the first half… the way he was able to bounce back in the second, especially defensively. What’d you take away from his performance?”
Williams: “Well, I thought his accountability was… it wasn’t fake accountability. He came out of the game and he knew that segment he had kind of put us in a bind. A lot of times guys say, ‘My bad.’ But it’s just to get it out of the way, and you could tell that he knew that those turnovers allow for them to get points off turnovers and it messed our rhythm up. So I thought to your point, his ability to bounce back in the second half was tremendous, and then his defense was stellar. We had a number of guys playing really good one-on-one defense, probably no one better than Stewie. But I thought JI had a great defensive effort tonight against guys that may have been a bit taller than him, and that speaks to his bouncebackability, he didn’t allow the turnovers to mess with his defensive effort. And then when we needed him to get to the basket and settle the game down, I thought he did a good job.”
